August 29, 2012 - According to Hoyle Day


Back in the day, when people wanted to assure others that they were quoting from an expert, they would say the phrase, “According to Hoyle...”

And this phrase was used whether people were discussing a new law or art history, the rules of a card game or mathematical theories.

Who was this guy Hoyle? And how did he know so much about all sorts of things?

Well, Edmond Hoyle, who was born in the 1600s and died on this date in 1769, was probably not an expert in so many different things; his name just became part of a phrase used to quote from experts of any name.




But he was a bit of an expert on the rules of card games. He was paid to tutor members of high society on the game of whist, and he began to publish his rule book for Whist. Eventually his publisher also printed Hoyle's rule books for piquet, chess, quadrille, backgammon and brag. At first each set of game rules was sold separately, in thin phamphlet-like printings, eventually all the rules were combined into one games rule book. Even today, many games rule books have Hoyle's name on the cover (even though he did not write them).

Hoyle's name was so linked to games, especially card games, that he became a charter member of the Poker Hall of Fame in 1979—even though poker hadn't yet been invented during his life!

Celebrate Hoyle by playing card games!

Here is a huge index of card games rule! 

This resource for card games rules is much smaller, but the games have been chosen as favorites with kids. 

And here is a free site where kids can play card games online. 

Also on this date:


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